October 22, 2014

Travel day from Cheraw, SC

To Ridgeville, SC

We set our alarm for 7AM because we wanted to get an early start.  I had researched three State parks in the direction we were headed.  I wanted to spend a couple of days exploring Charleston so I had looked for campgrounds nearby.  The closest one I could locate, within our budget, was in Ridgeville, 30 miles distance from Charleston.  The other two parks were further away but I always like to have a second and third option if the first one doesn’t work out.

Monte and I had visited Charleston 10 years on our first long road trip together so returning to the city will be a little sentimental for us.

 

It was only in the 40s as we prepared to leave 20 minutes ahead of schedule.

But the little extra time we had by leaving early was spent waiting in line at the dump station.

 

While Monte was dumping the tanks I called my first choice, Givhans Ferry State Park to find out if they had any sites we could have for a week.  The recorded stated the office opened at 11AM so I left a message asking to be called back.

Because my second choice was in the same direction as my first choice we entered Santee State Park in the GPS.

 

We stopped at the South Carolina Welcome Center to get brochures and maps.  Just as we were leaving the center I received a call from Givhans Ferry State Park-they had a site we could have for a week so cancelled our route for Santee SP.  The funny thing on the timing was that the Santee was the very next exit so if we hadn’t stopped at the Welcome Center when we did we would have gone to Santee before receiving the call from Givhans Ferry.  TIMING!

We had been instructed to go directly to our site and come to the office after setting up to register and pay.

After registering we took a walk down by the canoe/kayak launch.  

 

 

Maybe we will take our inflatable kayak out this week.

While Monte set up our tripod satellite I sat outside reading.  BUT a short time later I was forced to go inside because our neighbor started a campfire and then went for a walk leaving the fire that needed to be stoked.